Weiss hadn't even told her she was leaving.
Let alone say goodbye.
She hadn't even noticed. Buried in the bottom of one bottle or another. Winter had told her.
What have I done to deserve someone who still cared?
None of it was a surprise. It had been this way for a long time.
Too long.
Willow looked at herself in the mirror. It was not something she liked to do, especially when the world was no longer mercifully blurred.
Her clothes were as pristine as one would expect of a Schnee, as her hair would be once she was done. After some deliberation, she had decided on a long braid like the one she once wore. But under it all, it was easy to find the broken woman. The blue staring back at her betrayed a shattered world.
The outfit was one she hadn't worn in a very long time, it was elegant as expected of her family, but more practical than her usual. It wouldn't look completely out of place on one of her daughters. Boots, fitted trousers, and a long tactical jacket. The white was accented by purple more than red and blue, in contrast to the rest of her family.
Not that she would have to do anything physical, but it gave her confidence. Some at least. Something that had left her years ago and had to be clawed back. Hopefully it would be enough.
On the table in front of her was the final piece:
Eisdunst; her backsword.
It had been years since she had seen it, let alone held or worn it.
It was from a different time, when she was a different woman.
When she had attended Atlas Academy. Before he convinced her stop, never to graduate.
When she left all of her friends, except James, who Jacque had also taken a liking to.
He had claimed that it was because it was dangerous and he couldn't bear the thought of her getting hurt. Willow now knew that that was a lie like so many others. It was just about controlling her.
Willow had loved that man. The suave young gentleman who swept her off her feet. He was always kind, offering any help that he saw she may need. He always offered to pay despite how much wealthier her family was than his.
Little things, like remembering which foods she liked best so quickly showed how much he cared she had thought. He could make her laugh, and unlike so many she had met, his joke were never cruel to anyone.
He treated her like person, more than any of the other suitors that had come not for her, but for her name.
Oh, how she was in love.
In love with the man he pretended to be.
It had been the best day of her life when he proposed, but not long after eclipsed by the birth of their baby girl.
It hadn't been long since her father had passed, so he offered to take up her position at the company, so she could spend more time with the baby. She only saw it as his sacrifice for her.
But that was when the cracks started to show.
Lies.
Decisions made behind her back.
A temper that she hadn't seen in the years she had spent with him.
The company had been no saint under her father, but now. . .
He always had an excuse, and she believed them at first.
Through two more children and almost two decades.
She still loved him.
But the fights got worse. He put everything into the company, and nothing to his family.
He gave nothing real to her anymore.
But underneath it all, she thought that there still was that man she loved.
Until that day. The worst day of her life.
How could he have said that? They were fighting, more common now than it ever had been but still. . .
And on Weiss's birthday.
"I never loved you"
But when he had said it, she knew it was true. Willow had seen this man lie for nearly half her life, and although he was very good at it, this man knew how to make the truth hurt even more.
It was that night she had started drinking.
She couldn't sleep without it. It was easier to blackout than to cry one's self to sleep. At least then Willow wouldn't be crying in her dreams as well.
It wasn't until a few months later she finally worked up the courage, and made herself see the world for the lie she had been tricked into living for too long.
She had found him in his office, as usual. And Willow finally told that man what she had wanted to for months. They were going to get a divorce and she was going to take her company, her children, and her name with her.
The smile, that had brought joy and made her heart flutter, now flushed ice through her veins. He was calm, he must have know this was coming. When that smile parted he made his threat, and she could tell it was not an idle one.
He would take the children from her
Drinking had gotten the better of Willow on a few occasions at public events. It had been very embarrassing, but she hadn't seen it as more than that. Now he was threatening to use it and everything else as evidence against her, maybe even have her committed.
Unless she stayed in line. Stayed out of trouble and pretended to be the perfect Schnee she had always been.
And so she did.
Drinking the pain away. A mother who was physically there, but only that.
She had had Klein put the sword away in a moment of clarity after an accident with a dinner knife showed she couldn't be trusted with it. And what if she left it somewhere and the children found it?
One of the few good things she did in the haze that had consumed her waking life.
Time, too much of it, passed in that fog.
Winter renounced her inheritance after following in her footsteps to Atlas, but finishing and joining the military.
Weiss wanted to get even farther away, so went to Beacon when her time came.
Willow was so proud of her daughters. They had stood up to the man that she couldn't and were thriving. One was one of the most promising young officers in the military. James was a good friend, but he would never have favoured her so except for her own merit.
All her life Winter had tried so hard to be the perfect heiress and daughter. But she could never do it; it wasn't who she was. Every failing had eaten away at her, it got so much worse when her mother wasn't there to support her.
One night, Winter had broken down after her anxiety had gotten the best of her yet again, and her father had made sure to reminder her that she was a disgrace for letting it happen. That night Willow had talked to her daughter, trying hard to be sober doing so, and helped her decide that her path was not to be the one set before her. But it could be one of her own making. That was the last time Willow did something she was proud of.
And then there was her little girl, whom she had watched from the prison of her own making, was finally happy, at least mostly. Weiss wasn't lonely; that sad song she had heard at night, the one that only made her drink more, was no longer true.
When Weiss first came home she tried to talk about it with her mother, and Willow could remember most of it. She seemed to deeply care about her team, and from what Weiss had said they cared for her too. Another team had been almost as close, not to mention a few other friends and acquaintances who she held in varying regard.
Even if the Fall caused more pain for it, losing some of those she honestly called friends and being ripped away from the rest.
That was really the only time they had really spoken, despite the months she was home.
Now they were both gone again.
Winter had told her some before being redeployed somewhere, trying to keep her mother not completely in the dark. Willow knew that her eldest could remember best when she wasn't this way, and probably still loved for who she was.
The younger two. . . May not. And she couldn't blame them.
She had overheard what and how her own son talked to Weiss. Just like his father. And with what Winter had told her it made sense. Now Whitley was heir.
What Klien had told her was the worst of all. He had been almost as angry as her, but he was powerless to do anything about it.
The man behind the mask had hit her before. When she had embarrassed him mostly. He made sure not to leave bruises where others might see them.
But that fucker had laid a hand on her daughter, her little girl.
And now, he couldn't threaten to take away her three children. Because two had already left because of him. And now she had to save Whitley from that monster.
Willow picked up the blade, her hand was shaking and not just because it felt heavier than she remembered: it has been a day since her last drink. Everything hurt and she felt sick, but now she needed her head clear, even if it did ache terribly.
Klein had kept her weapon in great condition, it wasn't sharp but still gleamed like she remembered. She checked the barrel on the back of the blade to make sure it wasn't loaded. She didn't want any accidents.
In the polished blade she could almost see the woman that she use to be.
Willow sheathed Eisdunst and affixed it to her belt.
The walk to his office was not a long one, but one she had not made for a long time.
She had been assured no one else would be around and no one else would be in the office. Klein really was one of the few friends she had left, and a better parent than she or her husband had ever been.
One final obstacle remained, the door.
Fears plague her, telling her to go back. The memory of the threats and every time she had failed were near consuming.
But she had come so far now, and the price of another failure was not one she could continue paying.
Willow slammed the door open, initially barely eliciting a response from the figure seated behind the desk.
When he looked up, there was first confusion. And not a small amount of displeasure.
And then he saw what she was wearing.
But most of all her eyes.
The fire that he had smothered long ago was ablaze again.
"Hello Jacques, we need to talk."
A backsword is a sword that is somewhere between a sabre and a rapier, so I thought it fitting to give mom a weapon close to her daughters'. Eisdunst means "Ice Haze" in German, and I think a fitting name for a Schnee's blade.
This is the first story I've published on this site and I am still new to writing fiction. I am open to and welcome criticism.
If you've seen this story on Reddit before, I didn't steal it; that was also me.
Hope someone enjoyed! :)